Can I Kiss You?
by 0nce Upon My Story
Summary: "Leaving so soon?" Poe asked, catching her shoulder. Zorii shrugged, but her voice was bittersweet as she replied, "I've done my bit. There's nothing keeping me here now." That stung, but he couldn't argue. "Okay," he said. "But there's something I've got to tell you first."


**A/N: I am totally, completely in love with the Poe/Zorii ship from _The Rise of Skywalker – _my sister and I agreed that it was one of the only really good things to come out of the movie. All hail Oscar Isaac and Keri Russell!**

**Since I'm rather obsessed with both Poe/Zorii and fanfiction, my way forward is clear: Poe/Zorii fanfiction. Unfortunately, there are as yet very few fics written for this ship – something that I've taken it upon myself to change as quickly as possible. **

**To all you fellow Poe/Zorii shippers out there – we are the spark that will light the fire. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. But seriously – we may be small, but we love this ship to pieces, and that's what counts, isn't it? Here's to Poe/Zorii.)**

* * *

Life was good. He had his friends, Zorii was not dead, and they had beaten the Final Order against all odds.

Oh, and apparently Kylo Ren was on their side now. Or so Rey said. He wasn't too sure about that one, but both Finn and Rey (Rey far more enthusiastically than Finn, it had to be noted) had assured him that Ben Solo was back.

On the topic of Finn – his friend was Force-sensitive? Really? _That _was his big secret?

"And there I thought you had a thing for Rey," Poe muttered to himself. "Well, I had that wrong, for sure."

He watched affectionately as Finn wrapped an arm around Rose, who smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah, that works," he said to himself. It would probably be a while before they actually admitted they loved each other, but it would happen, Poe was sure of that. He had never seen Finn look at anyone quite the way he looked at Rose – sure, he obviously cared a lot about Rey, but with Rose there was something _more, _something softer.

_Rey._

While he was thinking about relationships, there was _definitely_ something going on between Rey and Ben Solo.

But he wouldn't pry. As long as Rey was happy – and if the way she and Solo looked at each other was any indication, she would be happy for a _long _time – he was happy, too. He might not have the best history with the guy, but as long as he made his friend smile like that, Poe was willing to let bygones be bygones.

He was still watching his friends, doubtless with a ridiculously fond grin on his face, when he saw her. Zorii.

She was leaving.

Poe's heart skipped a beat, and he shoved his drink at the nearest person with a quick "look after that for me, will you?" Then he jogged briskly across the hall, reaching Zorii just as she was about to walk out of the door.

"Leaving so soon?" Poe asked, catching her shoulder and hoping against hope that she might say no.

Zorii shrugged, but her voice was bittersweet as she replied, "I've done my bit. There's nothing keeping me here now."

That stung, but he couldn't argue.

"Okay," he said, nodding at her and doing his utmost to stifle the ache in his chest. "But there's something I've got to tell you first."

He couldn't see Zorii's face, but he was willing to bet she was raising her eyebrows at him behind the mask. "What's that?"

He flashed a look around him and shook his head. "Not here. Can we go somewhere more private?"

"Dameron…" There was a clear warning in her tone as she let the sentence trail off unfinished.

Poe shook his head, _not this time, _and because she was Zorii, she understood.

He led her into a small side corridor just out of the way of the main flow of people. They both leaned against the wall, looking at one another in silence for a few moments, the air between them thick with memories.

Zorii let out a quiet breath and opened her visor. "So, what did you want to tell me?" she asked, her voice not exactly _sad, _but not happy, either.

Bittersweet, that was the word he was looking for. Her voice and her beautiful eyes were bittersweet, a thousand words left unsaid and scenarios that could have been swirling in their layered depths.

He took a deep breath to gather himself, then spoke, holding her green gaze as best he could and doing his utmost to convey his earnestness.

"Zorii. Look, I know what we had was a long time ago, and that you probably can't wait to see the back of me, but I need you to know…"

He took another bolstering breath, swallowed, and forced himself to keep looking into her eyes. "When I heard about Kijimi, and I thought you were gone, I was… shattered."

Zorii's expressive eyes were carefully blank, giving nothing away – but bizarrely, that gave him hope. If she had been angry, she wouldn't have bothered with trying to hide it from him. The fact that she was deliberately keeping her gaze neutral meant that she _was _feeling something, she just didn't want him to know what it was.

In fact, her green eyes were _so _expressionless that he knew she was fiercely conflicted, to say the least.

Bolstered, Poe went on. "Walking out on you was the hardest thing I've ever done. Not because of the job – kriff knows I was more than ready to walk out on that – but because of _you."_

He thought he saw a flicker of… something (relief? Exasperation? _Hope?) _in her gaze, but it was gone before he could be sure.

"I considered asking you to come with me," he told her. "But I guess I knew you wouldn't agree. In the end I convinced myself that just leaving was the best for us both, and I've spent five years telling myself that there really was no other way."

He dropped his gaze for a moment, ashamed at himself, but looked up again just as quickly. She deserved the truth, all of it, and she deserved it face-to-face.

"But I also knew, deep inside, that maybe it hadn't been the only way, and that I acted too fast, too recklessly. I have a bad habit of doing that."

The corners of her eyes crinkled for a second or so as though she was fighting a smile. She gave him a nod – _go on. _

The next part would be the hardest for him to get out, but he knew he had to do it.

So he did.

"I knew that if I ever went back to Kijimi, I'd see you, and I wouldn't be able to lie to myself anymore," he admitted.

He allowed himself a quick, bittersweet smile. "And when I did see you again, it was everything I had been afraid of. You helped me, even after everything I'd done to you, and you gave me hope when I was ready to give it all up."

"And you gave me this." He dug into his pocket, pulling out the First Order captain's medallion. "Your best shot at getting off that hellhole, and you gave it to me."

He held her gaze, and the air between them felt charged with intensity. "There was no lying to myself anymore, not after that. I made a mistake five years ago, and probably the biggest one of my life."

"I'm sorry, Zorii," he concluded, and even he could hear the raw emotion in his voice. He stretched out a hand, reaching forward to brush her cheek just above the edge of her visor, but remembered himself in the nick of time and pulled back.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I need you to know that. And if there was some way I could go back and change things, I'd do it, if it meant I didn't have to lose you."

He dropped his hand to his side with a sad kind of finality, taking a last long look into her deep green eyes before turning and walking slowly away.

Zorii's quiet voice stopped him in his tracks. "You haven't lost me, Poe."

He turned back, the tiniest flicker of hope flaring up in his chest. "What?"

She shook her head slightly and gestured for him to come back, which he promptly did.

"When you walked out on me, I was furious," she began, giving him a level look. "Yeah, a fair part of it was aimed at you, but mostly I was mad at myself."

She gave a small, bitter laugh, her eyes glistening with memory. "We agreed that the thing we had would be purely physical, with no feelings and attachments getting in the way."

She looked askance at him, then shook her head again, eyes wry. "It should have been perfect. But somehow I had gone and gotten myself attached, and I had only myself to blame for feeling so broken-hearted when you left."

She held up a hand to stop his protest, giving him a quelling glare until he subsided into a slightly mutinous silence.

"I've spent five years telling myself that I was over you, and that I couldn't care less if you lived or died. And then you had to go and land yourself back on Kijimi, your stupid ass as much in need of saving as ever."

Her eyes sparked the way they always did whenever she shot him a wry grin, and he would have betted his life that she was wearing a reminiscent smile under that mask.

"And just like old times, I couldn't help myself. I saved your sorry hide from the First Order, and against all my better judgment, I helped you and your Jedi friend and that blasted droid."

She met his eyes again, her eyes heavy with irony. "Before I knew it, I was in serious trouble with the authorities. I stole myself a ship, and the crew and I left Kijimi."

"Just in time, too, as it turned out. We popped out of hyperspace a few parsecs short of Kessel, and minutes later we got the news that Kijimi had been destroyed by the First Order."

"We were all at a loss for what to do after that. Then we heard Lando Calrissian's ridiculously inspiring call to arms, and I figured, what the hell? What was the point in trying to stay neutral when I had already chosen my side?"

Her green eyes fixed intently on his, and Poe was unable to look away (not that he wanted to.)

"I chose your side, Poe, and it was inevitable even before you came back to Kijimi," she told him, her words carrying the weight of her wish that things could have been different.

"I've always had bad judgment when it comes to you," she said wryly. "And I guess I always will."

"Then why would you try to leave?" he asked urgently.

Zorii's eyes filled with an emotion he couldn't describe. There was regret there, but also a wry kind of acceptance.

"I tried to leave _because _I always have bad judgment when it comes to you," she told him. "I was worried that all it would take was for you to ask me, and I'd stay here and damn all the consequences."

"You mean that?" he asked softly, half-unconsciously beginning to move towards her.

"Course I do, Poe," she said, her eyes and voice full of that unnameable emotion again. "There's very little I wouldn't do for you."

There was a lot of meaning behind those words, but Poe chose to concentrate on the one that shouted loudest for his attention. He had always thought about these things a certain way, after all.

"But you shook your head when I asked if I could kiss you again!"

Zorii's eyes widened with exasperation and amusement. "We were in the middle of a giant crowd!"

There was no way he could stop the grin spreading across his face as he took a step closer to her. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. So you're saying that if we hadn't been in the middle of a crowd…"

"It's not impossible," she said, and he could tell she was grinning.

He looked very obviously around them before taking another step closer. "Well, we're not in the middle of a giant crowd now."

Zorii rolled her eyes, but not without a certain amount of fondness. "You always were an incurable flirt."

He closed the last little bit of distance between them, reaching for the clasps of her mask. "You've never complained."

With a familiar hiss of air, the clasps disconnected, and Zorii's mask came off in his hands. He dropped it to the floor, ignoring her faint grumble of protest, and brought his hand to her cheek, revelling in the feel of her soft, warm skin against his fingers.

She was every bit as beautiful as he had remembered – more so, if that was even possible. Poe traced the curve of her cheek with gentle fingers, stopping just shy of the corner of her lip as he used his other hand to pull her flush against him.

"Can I kiss you?" he murmured, leaning down so that their noses were almost brushing and running his thumb lightly across her lip.

"I don't know, can you?" she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a challenging smirk.

Poe grinned, and every part of him sang with delight as he leaned down and kissed her.

He brought the hand at her back up to thread through her hair, loosening the knots that had formed under her helmet and savouring the familiar sweet smell of vanilla. Zorii echoed his actions, tangling her hand in his hair and kissing him with fierce passion.

"Stars, I missed you," he muttered against her lips, and she hummed low in her throat and kissed him again.

After a decent while, Poe pulled back to look at her, tracing circles on her flushed cheek. "Stay."

Zorii gave a shivery sigh. "Poe, I can't –"

"No, Zorii," he interrupted. "I know you better than that. You wanted out of spice running a long time ago. You wanted to get off Kijimi and start over."

He caressed her cheek with his thumb, looking down at her with fierce tenderness. "This is your chance. The war's over, Kijimi's gone, and the whole galaxy is going to start anew. Stay, Zorii, and start fresh with us. With me."

"_Please," _he added softly, urgently, his mouth so close to hers that the word itself was almost a kiss.

Zorii cupped his cheek in her hand and kissed him, soft and sweet and slow. When she pulled away, her eyes were shining.

"Okay."

_~ Fin._


End file.
